


All of Our Ghosts

by learningthetrees



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Tetralogy - Thomas Harris
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Insomnia, newlyweds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2018-07-27
Packaged: 2019-06-17 00:08:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15448908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/learningthetrees/pseuds/learningthetrees
Summary: Neither of them was perfect; they’d found each other too late in life for that. They might never be without their ghosts, but as Molly read the acceptance in Will’s eyes, she realized that was okay.





	All of Our Ghosts

For the first few nights after she and Will got married, Molly couldn’t sleep. She would kiss Will good night and lie in the dark quiet as his breathing became slower and deeper, staring at the ceiling until fingers of morning light brushed across it. It didn’t matter how tired she was — all she could see whenever she closed her eyes were images of her first wedding, the birth of her son, the way her late husband used to smile. All around her a whirl of nostalgia and guilt and confusion. Occasionally, she considered waking Will up, wanting to talk through the mess of her mind with someone who would understand, but when she saw how completely sleep erased the anxiety from his face, she couldn’t bring herself to disturb him.

After enduring three nights of insomnia and facing a fourth, Molly waited until Will fell asleep and then peeled back the covers, slipping carefully out of bed. She draped a bathrobe over her shoulders and crept down the stairs. As she passed through the living room, she noted the dark shapes of sleeping dogs spread out across the floor. She tiptoed past them, not wanting to wake them and set them off barking, but the ears of one pricked up and he stood and trotted over to her.

It was Winston, Will’s speckled mutt, looking at her with what she could have sworn was a concerned expression. Molly always felt that dogs were intuitive, but Winston had a singular quality that sometimes made her believe he knew what she was thinking. He was a lot like Will in that way. Molly scratched Winston behind the ears, and he followed her as she slipped out the back door onto the porch.

A humid, salty breeze blew up from the bay. The horizon was so dark that Molly couldn’t distinguish where the black sky ended and the black ocean began, but she could hear the _hush_ of water lapping up against the shore. She sank into a wooden loveseat, Winston flopping down by her feet. As she ran a hand over the dog’s fur, Molly stared absently out into the dark. It’s not that she wasn’t happy; she felt things for Will she hadn’t felt in years. But it also felt like only yesterday that she’d met Willy’s father, that they’d gotten married, that Willy had been born. And of course, playing through her previous marriage in her mind always led her to its sudden end.

Molly was so lost in thought, she barely heard the door open until she saw Will standing on the porch beside her, pulling on a thin t-shirt. Winston sat up upon seeing him, and Will gave him a pat on the head as he lowered himself into the loveseat next to Molly.

“I didn’t mean to wake you up,” she said, but Will brushed it off without a word. He didn’t ask her what was wrong, didn’t touch her, didn’t give her that condescending sympathetic look people often gave. He just sat beside her, offering his presence and an ear if she wanted. It was something she’d learned about Will; while he could sometimes have difficulty finding the words, he never failed to make the gesture.

“I keep….remembering,” she said finally, resting her chin on her hand. “And it’s just…it’s not fair. I don’t want to live in the past anymore. It won’t change anything.”

Will sighed, and his eyes flitted everywhere except to Molly as he spoke. “Just because you can’t change it doesn’t mean what happened to you isn’t important.”

“When we lost Willy’s father, it was so sudden.” She rarely cried when she talked about him anymore, remembering the good with the bad. “I honestly thought I’d never move on.”

“You’re not a bad person for moving on.”

Molly wanted to object. She wanted to believe that she was the only person who had to deal with such ghosts; her misery shunned company. But here he was, willing to sit with her and weather whatever was keeping her awake. And Will never said anything to her he didn’t feel with his utmost being was the truth. 

“Sometimes it’s hard to believe that.”

“Moving on doesn’t mean forgetting, either,” he continued. Winston scooted closer to Will so that he was halfway between the two of them, and Will automatically leaned forward to scratch the dog. “He’ll always be a part of your life. You see him every time you look at your son, like a reflection.”

“How is that fair to you?” Molly turned in her seat to face Will, but he was still focused on petting the dog. “Will,” she said firmly, and he looked up at her.

“You know I’ve never wanted to compete with him.”

“I know. But you didn’t ask for any of this.”

“For any of what?” Will glanced around him, towards the beach hidden by darkness and the cozy house behind him.

Molly sighed and let out what she’d been avoiding saying. “You didn’t ask for a wife who can’t quite let go of a ghost.”

Will scoffed, but he still made direct eye contact with her, his blue eyes intense. “You think you’re the only one with ghosts?”

It was at that moment that Molly realized that Will’s understanding didn’t stem from his so-called gift of empathy. He understood because he’d lived the same life she had. He’d had loved ones taken from him. He had been betrayed by more than just biology. While she lay awake at night seeing Willy’s father, Will lay awake at night surrounded by the ghosts of those whose lives he’d lost as well as taken. Neither of them was perfect; they’d found each other too late in life for that. They might never be without their ghosts, but as Molly read the acceptance in Will’s eyes, she realized that was okay.

Impulsively, she closed the distance between them with a kiss, taking him by surprise for a moment before he enthusiastically kissed her back. She held onto his jaw while he palmed her lower back, each of them feeling the heat radiating off of the other. “Let’s go inside,” Will mumbled into a kiss, unable to tear himself from her. Somehow, they made it upstairs, the journey punctuated with kisses and caresses that grounded Molly in the present. When they finally splayed across the bed, spent and smiling, Molly drifted to sleep in Will’s arms, blissfully unaware for the moment of all of their ghosts.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me at [ask-learningthetrees.tumblr.com](http://www.ask-learningthetrees.tumblr.com)!


End file.
